SMART BORDERS ARE STRONG BORDERS

Smarter Borders deliver £2.5 million savings for importers

Ashford Port Health reduces SPS fees by 8% as investment in technology and specialist expertise improves productivity while maintaining robust border controls.

Importers using Ashford Port Health will benefit from an 8% reduction in SPS fees from 1 August, saving businesses around £1.2 million over the coming year.

CHED charges for consignments up to six tonnes will reduce from £68 to £63, additional tonnes from £11 to £10, and transit consignments from £113 to £104.

The reduction follows Ashford Port Health’s decision, earlier this year, to hold fees at 2025/26 levels despite inflationary pressures, absorbing rising costs rather than passing them on to importers and delivering a further £1.3 million in savings. Together, the two decisions will deliver around £2.5 million in savings compared with what fees would otherwise have been.

In line with the principles of cost recovery, Ashford Port Health continually reviews its charging structure to ensure businesses pay no more than the cost of delivering official border controls while maintaining a resilient, high-quality service.

The latest reduction reflects a sustained programme of investment in digital technology, smarter processes and workforce development at Ashford Port Health, who operate at Sevington BCP in Kent, The UK's busiest inland border control facility.

Ashford Port Health became the first Port Health Authority in the UK to introduce AI enabled Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) to support the initial stage of documentary import checks. Rather than replacing officers, the technology supports professional judgement by reducing repetitive administrative tasks and giving officers better information earlier in the process.

Combined with redesigned workflows and bespoke digital systems, the approach has improved productivity by around 40%, enabling Ashford Port Health to process significantly higher volumes of import notifications without compromising standards or requiring equivalent growth in administrative resource.

Ashford Port Health now processes around 30,000 import notifications every month through its 24-hour operation at Sevington, helping facilitate international trade while protecting the UK's food supply. Since November 2024, officers have prevented more than 226,000kg of unsafe food from entering the food chain.

Alongside investment in technology, Ashford Port Health has developed one of the UK's largest specialist Port Health workforce's from a standing start. More than 100 employees have benefited from structured professional development, helping create highly skilled careers in Kent while addressing national shortages across the environmental health profession.

Anthony Baldock, Corporate Director of Health & Wellbeing, Ashford Borough Council, said:

"From the beginning, our ambition has been to build a modern border control service that protects the public while making trade as efficient as possible.

"By investing in technology, digital innovation and a highly skilled workforce, we've improved productivity and are now able to pass those efficiencies directly back to businesses through lower fees.

"People often assume stronger border controls mean greater friction for trade. Our experience at Sevington shows the opposite. A stronger border is not a slower border.

"It is a border that uses better information, better risk insight and professional judgement to apply the right control at the right time. Technology doesn't replace expertise; it enhances it